I’m soon 63 and wonder if I’m out of options to have the life I want.
I certainly have more time behind me than before, and the time behind me wasn’t always spent very well.
But how could I know, for example, that marrying Calum and moving to an island off the Scottish coast wouldn’t be the perfect happy life? It seemed like a romantic dream come true at the time … and then, of course, came the Falklands, his wound, his drinking, and after 10 years of fighting for the dream, it ended.
Now I am with my Nianzhen, or Marcus as his English name is. And it is better. He has guided me in sifting through all those vague notions I had of the spiritual world before and recognizing truth from pure belief. It is certainly better than if I had been stuck on the Mormon farm of my childhood.
I also don’t need to think about the next paycheck anymore, his or mine. Or what to live from during retirement. In effect, I am already retired because I don’t need to teach anymore.
But what then?
I can’t prevent my husband from working himself to death—his biggest blind spot. And, despite all the spin he puts on it, that is what is happening. I have lived with one man who tried to explain away his addiction.
Aside from giving them money, I can’t do much to help my daughter, with her anxiety and her autistic son and all the rest. Like health insurance, apparently, there is a limit to how far healing and prayers go.
Perhaps it is their karma. But it would be easier if I lived closer by, like when Carrie had her first child. Then I could help them bear it all.
I don’t have any other family left or many friends. And some of those friends have begun to pass away, like Mary. One stroke. And in the next moment, she wasn’t there anymore.
What should I choose to focus on for the rest of my life? I feel time is running out and I have to make a decision soon.
I don’t want that much for myself anymore, and yet I can’t help thinking that I am missing something important I have to do in the time I have left.
But because there is that situation with my husband and my only daughter I can’t concentrate on what I need. For myself. I worry about them constantly. Even prayer to calm my mind doesn’t help.
I remember back in the early 80s when I had just had Carrie, or Caroline as we called her then.
Back on Skye.
While Calum was at work, I’d push her stroller along the winding roads near our first home on the island. The best roads were paved but I had to be careful of traffic, always looking over my shoulder, even though there weren’t many cars in that area.
I always made sure I never went further away than I was able to see the summit of Beinn na Caillich, near the house.
On that peak, a Norwegian Viking princess was buried so that the winds from her native land could pass over her final resting place. I think it was a legend, but there is a cairn up there, and I have seen it.
Skye used to belong to Norway, and many names are derived from old Norse.
It often rains in Scotland, and most mornings I saw a beautiful rainbow, rising over that very peak, where the princess had her last resting place.
In our world, you look for treasure at the end of the rainbow. Before Christianity, the heathen Vikings thought it was a bridge to Asgard, home of the gods, one of the many worlds they believed were beyond ours.
Carrie sent Nianzhen an article the other day, to use in one of his courses. It’s about science looking for other worlds, something called “ghost universes”.
I think it sounds rather shallow. I prefer the spiritual planes and angels, no matter what version they come in. I’d even take Asgard over some science mumbo jumbo about alternate universes we can’t go to anyway.
Sixty-goddamn-three. Where did my life go?
Maybe I have 20 more years left, but probably not all in good health.
I don’t need to think about rent, food or even love anymore, but now I am thinking of everyone else.
And is that it? What was I here to do that was uniquely me?
That wasn’t just about surviving or taking care of someone else.
I will find out what is at the end of the rainbow soon.
What should I do with my life as long as I’m only skirting the edge?
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DEBORAH, May 2016
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End of “Ghost Hearts” – part V
Next up: MARCUS CHEN
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Cover photo by Kelly Newton on Unsplash
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